Trump: I must meet Putin — now. If he won’t play ball, sanctions hit. Putin’s tired of war. Zelensky? Tough to deal with. Delegating peace doesn’t work.
So if Trump finally steps in, hard and direct, and gets the deal — he’ll stand above all. Or maybe Putin’s has played him. 0/
Trump: I have a very good relationship with Putin. We have to get together fast. We'll probably schedule it up.
I'm tired of having other people go and meet and everything else. I'm the only one that's going to be able to get the deal done. 1/
Trump: Nobody uses leverage better than me. Look what I did to Iran.
Q: Why not do it with Russia?
Trump: Honestly, I will [impose sanctions], if we don’t get a deal.
This is Turkey time. 2/
Trump: Putin is tired of this whole thing. He's not looking good and he wants to look good.
Don't forget this [war] was supposed to end in one week.
If he didn't get stuck in the mud with his army tanks all over the place, they would have been in Kyiv in about 5 hours. 3/
Q: Is Putin now the obstacle to peace?
Trump: I had a real rough session with Zelensky because I didn’t like what he said.
He was not making it easy. I always said he doesn’t have the cards. You know I’m being honest. 4/
Trump: I hated to see the way it [aid to Ukraine] was pissed away. Zelensky's the greatest salesman in the world, far better than me.
Every time he comes to Washington, he walks out with 100 billion.
Now his abilities are shrinking - the last time he only got 60 billion. 5/
Trump: Putin wanted the whole thing [Ukraine]. He didn’t want a chunk. He didn’t want a peace.
Somebody said ‘Well, what do we get out of it in terms of let’s say Ukraine?’
You know what they get out of it? A large portion of the country. 6/
Trump: Putin was making a fortune out of oil. Now I have it down. So nobody's making a fortune anymore.
And it's going to go down further because I'm drill, baby, drill. 7X
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Sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska — founder of Rusal and a longtime Putin ally agreed to fund the war.
His refinery in Limerick, Ireland has been running throughout the war. Alumina exports from Ireland to Russia grew from $243M to $376M since 2022— The Moscow Times. 1/
None of this breaches EU rules.
The refinery is owned by Rusal, where Deripaska holds a quarter of shares. Sanctioning a person while leaving his corporate structures intact lets governments claim compliance while keeping the profits flowing. 2/
An investigation by The Irish Times and OCCRP suggests that alumina produced at the Limerick plant feeds into supply chains that may reach dozens of Russian arms manufacturers.
Ukraine's ambassador to Ireland has raised the issue directly with the Irish government. 3/
At 21, Dmytro Dovhenko shot down his first Russian Mi-24 helicopter near Pavlivka with a Stinger. He had been a train driver in the Carpathians two weeks before.
Today, at 25, he commands thousands of soldiers as chief sergeant of Ukraine's 32nd "Steel" Brigade — ArmyInfo. 1/
February 24, 2022. A friend from Lviv called: "Dimon, sirens. It started." Dmytro went to the recruitment office. They told him to go home — he was only 21.
He stood outside 20 minutes. Then walked back in: "Start the process. I want to serve."
2/
A month into service, Russian helicopters flew in low. Dmytro had a Stinger. He aimed, waited for the target lock signal. Fired.
"Adrenaline, trembling, empty tube in my hands. Guys peeked out from their shelters and whispered: that's him, he shot it down. That was forever." 3/
"I don't enjoy killing. I treat it as work that cleans Ukraine of Russians, like Colorado beetles." This is 47-year-old sniper Tetyana Khimion, callsign "Tango" — a former ballroom dance instructor from Sloviansk, writes Ukrainska Pravda. 1/
She started dancing at seven. In 2002 she opened her own club "Four Step" in Sloviansk. At eight months pregnant she showed children how to do cartwheels and splits. On the fifth day after giving birth she was back in the studio. Then she decided dancing was not enough. 2/
In summer 2022 she joined Special Operations Forces without telling her husband. When the battalion commander asked who she saw herself as, she answered without hesitation: "A sniper." She had held a rifle for ten to fifteen minutes in her life. But she felt it was hers. 3/
For seven days straight, Ukrainian drones have been hitting Russia's Baltic oil ports — Ust-Luga and Primorsk, thousands of kilometers from the front.
What started on March 23 has become a sustained campaign that has cut Russian oil exports by a factor of three. — United24. 1/
Primorsk loaded 4 tankers instead of 10. Ust-Luga loaded 2 instead of 8.
Russia's total seaborne oil exports fell from 4.1 million to 2.3 million barrels per day along a route that accounts for 28% of all Russian exports. 2/
On March 29 alone, three fuel storage tanks at Ust-Luga were hit with a combined capacity of 90,000 tons.
After the March 25 attack, three oil tankers, five storage tanks, and three berths were damaged. After each strike, oil-loading operations were halted. 3/
Fukuyama: The U.S. does not now have a Trump doctrine.
Its behavior can best be explained not by a set of principles, but by the personal interests and preoccupations of the president.
Trump's head is full of resentments, anger, anecdotes, and made-up facts. 1/
Fukuyama: Trump relies on emissaries like Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, neither of whom have the standing or the knowledge to advise wisely.
Members of Congress, journalists and foreign leaders asking the administration what its goals are will never get a clear answer. 2/
Fukuyama: Trump does whatever will best advance his political standing and enrich himself.
At one moment he's demanding regime change, the next moment he explains the regime has already changed. It is not good when the most powerful country is guided by personal interests. 3Х
Former Ukraine FM Kuleba: Ukraine's peace talks fall on deaf ears — as long as Russia has zero incentive for peace and the US doesn't change its approach.
More video calls won't help. Russia won't stop unless there are driving forces on their side. But it doesn’t want to stop.1/
Kuleba: If Putin attacks a NATO ally, Europe will focuse on its own war. Trump's mood toward NATO creates Ukraine's biggest risk.
Europe is our second largest weapons source.
If that's gone — we are in trouble.
2/
Kuleba: Ukraine's access to Patriot interceptors is suspended because of the war in Iran. And Russia makes money on oil again.
Both of these points are detrimental. But Ukraine demonstrates resilience — we hold on.